


Remembrance

by DrowningDutchman



Category: Jojo Rabbit (2019)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Dealing With Memories, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Post War, Remembrance, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-13
Updated: 2020-02-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:56:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22700593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DrowningDutchman/pseuds/DrowningDutchman
Summary: How could he have possibly ever thought they were like all the other, when they did so much to set themselves apart?
Relationships: Freddy Finkel/Captain Klenzendorf
Comments: 4
Kudos: 67





	Remembrance

A young man and woman were walking together and busily chatting about something or other. They’ve known each other for years and even if they were not related, they were as close as if they were siblings. That fact wasn’t strange given what they went through together. They joked about the situations they have been in and seriously talk about those same situations when they need to. It’s been years since the end of the war and both Johannes Betzler and Elsa Korr have given the bad that happened a place, not forgetting what happened but acknowledging that both of them were victims of the situation, even if Johannes never believed this.

Johannes was holding a bunch of flowers; Elsa was walking with her hands in her pockets. She smiled as they walked slowly through the streets that had been scarred by the war that happened, even if it happened fifteen years ago. Johannes still had one last thing to give a place, something he hadn’t realized until quite recently and had just started to process.

“Thank you for coming with me, it didn’t feel right to take my wife or go alone.” He smiled as they walked the streets familiar to both of them. “She didn’t know them; I just don’t want to go alone…”

“Jojo, it’s fine. I understand… I would have done the same.” She smiled and walked with him. “Where exactly are we going? I mean, is there a gravesite?”

“There isn’t…They were fighting on the wrong side to be remembered… There is only one place I can think to go.” Johannes sighed to himself and turned into an alley when they finally reached it. “Here we are…”

“What is this? It’s just a random dead end alleyway.” Elsa looked around the sad looking alley, there really was nothing here that would be any type of a place for remembrance or anything. He looked at Elsa for a moment as he thought of a way to explain it.

“It’s…This is going to sound really bad. This is where he saved my life the last time. He was shot for it. If they don’t get to be remembered this is going to be where I will. It’s the best I can do.” He looked at Elsa who just stared at him for a moment.

“That’s very depressing Jojo, you know, that right?” Jojo nodded as she said this, he knew he was sure. He looked at the empty wall in front of him and sat down on the ground for a moment. Elsa looked at him for a moment. “Take your time. Say what you need.”

He sighed for a moment and put the flowers against the wall in a small arrangement he hoped looked good enough. He wasn’t one for flower arranging and as he finished, he looked at the small site he made before he took a breath and started speaking.

“I’m sorry it took me this long; I hope you’re not annoyed by that. It just took me a while to realize some things… It’s been hard, you know, getting out of that mindset they taught me for years. I thought you two were part of that even though you saved Elsa and myself from the gestapo that one time. It was just so easy to say you were bad, I didn’t know. I genuinely thought you two were the same as all the others. I only recently learned that was not the case. I went over my memories…through the stories I have to tell… I started to notice something. I don’t know if there was any truth to it, but it made sense. The way you two acted, the way you two were and of course the uniforms you wore in the end. I feel terrible for thinking you could be on the side of the Nazis.” He sighed to himself for a moment, he just looked at the flowers for a moment as Elsa put a hand on his shoulder. “It wouldn’t have been better for you two if you lived. You would still not have been allowed to be together, you two would have still had to hide and that is kind of hard when you tell your secret so openly… I’m sorry I could believe you would be on a side that was actively trying to kill the two of you too while all you likely wanted was just to exist, to just be together. I promise that in your memory I will make sure that when the time comes, I will fight your fight for you. Specifically, you K…you tried to make me think differently than I was told, you are the first person in power who told me we were going to lose. You deserve better than what you got, you deserve being remembered, I will tell your story. I hope the two of you get to be together now. I miss you.”

Jojo sighed as he spoke those last words, taking a small piece of card and a pen out of his pocket. Writing one last message: ‘In loving memory of Captain Klenzendorf and Freddy Finkel. The men on the wrong side, who deserve to be remembered. The men who saved my life multiple times.’

Johannes put the card with the flowers and stood up, looking at Elsa who smiled at him.

It wasn’t fair that these men were lumped in with terrible people, they were victims, nothing was solved for them when the war ended.

**Author's Note:**

> I just wanted to write something short and sad


End file.
